


I Will

by Oinops



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, somewhat canon divergent bc canon was kinda bad, you can read this as platonic but if you do i'll come into your house at night and steal your toes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23387794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oinops/pseuds/Oinops
Summary: Five times Blue needed comfort, and one time she didn't.
Relationships: Blue Diamond & Yellow Diamond (Steven Universe), Blue Diamond/Yellow Diamond (Steven Universe)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 59





	I Will

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a zine that never happened months ago. I thought it could finally be published.
> 
> I've always had a slight issue with how the relationship between White, Yellow and Blue was never actually resolved in the show, so this is some sort of attempt at fixing it.
> 
> And yes, my attempt is obviously making my favorite characters suffer.

_And while you sleep_  
_I'll be scared_  
_so by the time you wake_  
_I'll be brave._  
(I Will, Mitski)

All Blue knows upon first opening her eyes is the rubble digging into her knees, the faint ringing in her ears, the way White Diamond's mouth twists as soon as she raises her head. Moments old, she doesn't quite understand what disappointment means yet—still, it seems like the most appropriate word to describe the look on her senior's face.

 _Stars, not this one too_ , she can hear her mumble, or at least she swears so. It doesn't make sense, but there's no use in dwelling over it. Maybe it will, later on.

Or maybe it won’t.

White recomposes, leans over to brush the dust off her long hair, offers her a hand to get up. She gives her the briefest, most forced smile, but Blue has no term of comparison to tell it apart from a real one.

It doesn't matter. Not yet.

_Will it ever?_

_It doesn't…_

Maybe this constant state of doubt is just in the nature of existing. Maybe so is the permanent feeling of being out of place.

Maybe loneliness truly is chronic.

As she walks among the debris behind White, her head bent low, it really seems like the only sensible conclusion.

—

Yellow Diamond is a pure wonder.

Blue thinks so the first time she meets her, and then the time after, and the four thousand and fifty two times after that. She could spend hours observing her—how her back's always straight, her chin always high. She never falters, never lingers, never yields. There doesn't seem to be a time when she's not put together: unfailingly precise, constantly on schedule, always pulling through the most delicate public speeches and challenging military operations even when her hands shake.

Blue often wonders how.

Because she evades everyone's gaze, and only laughs when she shouldn’t. It always feels, somehow, like she's lagging behind—getting sidetracked by trivial matters, asking impudent questions, never really knowing what should and shouldn’t be prioritized.

It makes her nauseous, commanding invasions.

And planning kindergartens.

Spending hours hunched over spreadsheets.

Seeing her gems avert their eyes as she passes by.

But maybe it's only this—the old, heavy, indisputable knowledge that she'll never quite manage to keep up. Reports always pile up by the dozen on her desk—she gets through one, five more appear. White will twist her mouth, take it all away, confine her to a dark room for the next five centuries to _try and sort her stuff out for a little while_.

Whenever they accidentally cross paths down a hallway, Blue shivers. White glances at her, turns her nose up, and ignores her.

Repeat.

_She didn't mean to leave them for this long, Stars be her witnesses, but then—_

_And now she'll never manage to…_

Her insides twist and her breath quickens. She wonders, sometimes, if she'd be happier somewhere else—in another place, with another life. But then, for what is possibly the hundredth time in her existence, there's nothing to compare it with, no way of knowing for sure.

It still feels like she's drowning. 

(Does it matter, that she technically shouldn’t need to breathe?)

The sobs—ugly, gut-wrenching, hysterical—are quick to arrive. She bends over and holds her stomach, burying her face in her knees. Just to add insult to injury, this is the state Yellow finds her in as the doors to her control room slide open.

“I came here to check on…” she begins after entering, immediately staggering as soon as the aura hits. This, Blue realizes, is the first time Yellow's seen her cry.

 _But then_ — she muses— _wasn't_ _it bound to happen sooner or later?_

“Your progress,” she concludes, drying her eyes as if a speck of dust had gotten into them. Blue's shoulders tremble and her sobs resume: this time, however, she makes sure they're silent by shutting her mouth with her hand.

Yellow blinks, once and twice. “I’ll come back later,” she attempts, clearly mortified. It only manages to make her cry harder.

All she sees is fog. “I don't have—” she mouths. “It isn’t…”

“Not a problem, I'll just go until—”

But another, bright indigo wave washes over the room and leaves her stumbling. It takes what seems like years for Blue to pull herself together; face buried in hands, her breath labored, she assumes the other has finally left. The sharp click of heels against the floor, however, proves her wrong.

When Yellow sighs, her stomach drops.

“What's the issue? With the assignment, I mean,” she asks, and the young diamond does her best not to notice her embarrassment, the vague tinge of irritation.

“It’s… I didn't even manage to start—I’m sorry—and now White—”

One hand on her arm stops her, forcing her to look up. She blinks away dried tears.

“Please, Blue, you're being…”

But the sentence mysteriously never comes to an end.

“I'll help you,” she resolves instead, without any real inflection. Blue’s eyes almost cloud over again. The general drops to her knees in front of her chair.

“I'll help you,” she repeats, her palm on her thigh, and Blue’s aware of the weight in each of her digits. This strange softness seems so discordant, right here, in this place.

On her features.

Yellow’s mouth curves upwards, for the briefest second, and Blue finally discovers what a genuine smile looks like. For a moment, the world almost seems bearable.

For a moment.

—

The first time she loses form, she's one thousand and three. One critical strategic misstep accompanied by an impulsive, mouthy reply is apparently too far, even for the likes of her.

All she remembers is her spine cracking.

Blinding light.

A long, long sleep.

She wakes up in a room she doesn't recognize, Yellow catching her in her arms as she falls. As her eyes adapt to the semi-darkness, she realizes these are the commander's quarters: she keeps her close in her lap, now, as they both sit on the floor, with her hands smoothing over her shoulders.

“I thought you'd never be back.”

They've grown older since that day in the control room. Closer. As close as two people who only meet for a few hours every other decade can be, that is.

Yet even this feels like too much, sometimes.

Like they’re threading an almost invisible line.

“How long?” Blue questions, in spite of all herself, and tries to appear unfazed.

“Eighty years, two months, seventeen days.”

There's a crack in her friend's voice that she gracefully ignores. She doesn’t ask if she’s counted them, if she has spent them all beside her, because there really is no use.

She doesn’t even ask why, unsure if she really wants to know the answer.

“Two of her Agates dropped you in front of my doorstep,” Yellow continues, her voice muffled by her long hair. “Why would she even…?”

She doesn’t dare continue, and Blue doesn’t dare answer. Their hands are way too close, Yellow's breath way too warm against her neck. She leans her head against her shoulder regardless, and they don’t speak. They so very rarely need to.

(There it is.)

“Don’t be stupid,” Yellow tells her. And she doesn’t say please, doesn’t gently encourage her, because she never does. But Blue feels the whisper against her ear, how her words break with fathomless dread. She’d never pull away if she could, but this isn’t a luxury they’ll ever be afforded.

All she can do is take it to heart.

She stops laughing, shields her eyes, never asks another question again.

—

Pink Diamond rises from the ashes of a shooting star. 

She’ll perch on Blue’s throne, tug at her robes, do nothing but pester the three of them day and night. White calls her unbearable, turns her back on all of them; Yellow scoffs, says she’s impossible, but still teaches her to rewire a Sun Incinerator after enough pleading and having made sure no one’s around to see.

Blue shakes her head and smiles, ruffles her cloud-like hair. Lifts her to sit on her lap as she works.

She lets her keep plants, pets, playthings and trinkets of all possible sorts. Lets her play in her pool and gift her strange organic perfumes and bathing utensils; laughs at each and every single one of her jokes, at least until White rounds the corner and she needs to shush her. But she can’t help herself—Pink’s just so charming, so receptive, so curious.

So lonely.

Her eyes seem empty, sometimes. Bottomless. She’ll turn her pointed nose upwards, look out into the abyss of space, ask questions Blue has no way of answering.

 _Never doubt Her_ , she says, and tries to convince herself, too. Pink never listens, but it doesn’t matter, because soon enough Blue will be coming back to the tower to fetch her out in secret.

She begs for a colony. Yellow says she’s not ready, Blue disagrees. Yellow yields.

( _How wrong can it go, as long as she keeps her head down?_ )

She wants it more than anything, and then she doesn’t. There’s too many organics, she says. Too little resources anyway, she says.

( _We will be the judges of that._ )

( _But_ _—_ )

And then there’s an uprising, the first and only in all of Homeworld’s rule.

Yellow turns on her heel, never even looks back.

( _This has gone on far too long._ )

( _But I_ —)

( _No buts. We can’t keep going at this forever, Pink._ )

It’s easy, she tells her—be pleasant and resolute, she tells her. Smile and wave. Stop laughing. Never ask another question again.

_Don’t be stupid._

_That always works, doesn’t it?_

Pink Diamond rises from the ashes of a shooting star; just like a shooting star, she’s gone seconds after.

Pink Diamond turns to dust, Blue Diamond turns to stone.

—

It’s almost dark out, and she doesn’t quite remember the last time she has moved. Her right shoulder is numb, her hands cold, but it doesn’t matter; she closes her eyelids and tries to focus on something else—the bubbling of the fountain in the next room over, the shuffling of feet outside her apartments—but only hears static.

The door opens, and she flinches. There’s a sudden dip in the cushion she’s lying on.

“It’s been ten cycles,” her visitor says, placing a hand on her back. 

She doesn’t answer.

“You missed four trials today, and the hearing with your colony overseers.”

She breathes in, breathes out, as if bracing herself to speak again. That alone seems like an unbearable task, today—like climbing a mountain with bare hands and feet.

Toilsome.

Painful.

Some days, it’s not as bad. She can drag herself to her throne room, hide behind her veil until all of her subjects are gone again. Some days, she manages.

This is not one of them.

She coughs, and sound leaves her throat as if her vocal cords have calcified during their time of disuse. “Hadn’t noticed,” she remarks, and Yellow sighs. This is all she’s conceded, these days—exasperation, rolling eyes, pats on her shoulder given as if she might break at any moment.

It’s infuriating.

“Ten cycles,” Yellow repeats. It really is all she can say, after all. It takes all of Blue’s strength to turn on her side, stare at her lap, and breathe in.

“What of it?” she asks, with as much defiance as she can muster in her state. Yellow tenses imperceptibly, and it fills her with a warped kind of satisfaction. Still, her guest says nothing. 

She never gives in—never gives anyone anything at all. Blue could even have found it admirable, back then.

She used to be young, easily impressed.

Pliant.

Now, most days, Yellow just gets on her nerves.

“Say something, please,” she pushes, but the general doesn’t. Blue pulls herself up, stares straight into her eyes. Yellow averts them.

 _Anything. Give me anything_.

“We have duties.”

“This is really all that matters to you.”

Blue wishes Yellow would scream at her, break down, even slap her in the face. Anything would be better. 

_Anything at all._

But she should know what to expect, by now.

Yellow digs her fingers into the mattress.

“I don’t get to have an opinion on that. And neither do you.”

“You never even cared about her, did you? About anything else.”

She knows it’s a lie, but that’s besides the point. Yellow’s eyes cloud over briefly. She closes them for a second, inhales. How twisted and all-consuming, the sense of victory Blue feels.

“You truly didn’t.”

“Quit it.”

“Say something.”

In spite of herself, her eyes start to well up.

“Say _something._ ”

Silence.

And then it’s nothing but bright cobalt.

Yellow bends over as if punched in the stomach, slides off the bed and onto her knees, barely even manages to breathe. “Stop _,_ ” she hiccups, but Blue doesn’t.

_Have you ever had an actual belief of your own, Yellow? A genuine emotion?_

She sobs, and Yellow sobs harder—tries to hide her face in her hands, despite the sheer futility of it all. Blue relishes in it for a moment—in finally having the upper hand, finally getting a sliver of _anything_.

 _Maybe she’ll actually make her understand_.

But after five seconds flat, it’s just disgusting.

The aura recedes, and Yellow’s breathing slowly regulates. She dries her eyes in silence, picks herself off the ground. Blue looks away. “I think it’s been quite enough,” she says.

Her guest’s fingers shake. She leaves the room quickly, staggering, without a word more. Blue can’t bear to watch. As night falls, she stares at the empty wall in front of her. Alone, she heaves.

She’d throw up if she could.

—

Pink Diamond never died, but rather came to hate the three of them enough to let them believe that she did. Right now, though, she’s actually gone forever.

Right now, in spite of everything, the revelation somehow feels less painful.

Blue cradles the one who calls himself her son in her hands, walks up to Homeworld’s prison with her chin held high. _Take him back_ , Yellow orders.

 _No_ , she replies.

—

They fight, tumble, destroy three or four buildings along the way—but this time, Blue has no need to be comforted anymore.

She strokes Yellow’s hair in open daylight, dries the tears and dirt off her face with the tip of her thumbs. She holds her hand as they shakingly beg White to finally listen.

White doesn’t.

—

After all the racket and strange music, after light years of travel, after Homeworld glows pink for the very first time, the clamor slowly fades into a dim lilac sunset. And then there’s nothing left but echoing hallways, devoid of gems momentarily freed from their duties.

Blue has never believed in fate. Still it almost feels like destiny, how she stumbles into an empty throne room.

Yellow sits on the floor—her back against a pillar, helmet and gloves abandoned to her side.

She seemed to be doing great, that afternoon.

Blue comes closer, but the general only seems to notice when she sits down right beside her. It startles her: she stares for a second, then mutters a weak hello.

“Yellow,” says Blue, plainly, without much else to add. She starts observing her in silence, as she so often does—how she keeps rubbing her hands together, chasing away a cold she cannot feel. 

Or rather, desperately trying to verify that they are still her own.

It was just that morning, after all.

 _But they are_ , Blue thinks to herself. Golden and warm and bony and so strangely graceful, as they’ve always been.

However, she understands.

Because she still checks every mirror to make sure she’s not fading away.

Because there’s so many ways in which all of this could go wrong.

But right now she’s tired, and Yellow’s eye wrinkles look deeper than usual.

And there’s really no other options anymore, except moving on.

Blue brushes her forehead with her thumb, tucks a stray hair behind her ear. “Let me,” she says quietly, carefully taking her hand to ease her work. She interlocks their fingers, marvels yet again at how well they fit between one another.

They don’t speak. They still so very rarely need to.

Yellow leans against her, somehow ends with her face buried in her hair. Her breath slowly steadies.

For a second, for a night, the universe stands still.


End file.
